Tactical Level War Fighting Misses the Mark

For centuries, the US Army was fixated with the tactical level of warfighting. They believed that wars are won at that level. American generals thought in terms of divisions, regiments and battalions winning wars.

“Tactics are concerned with the physical destruction of the enemy’s front-line troops, up to a depth of about fifty kilometers. That distance embraces the enemy forward division's reserves.”

From Moles and Amateurs

“For the past fifty years one salient fact has marked the experience of American officers with war games. American officers continue to exhibit a desire to fight battles and engagements at the micro-tactical level. "Commanders (at all levels from battalion up) repeatedly attempt to force the level of computer play down to squad and sometimes individual vehicle..." This universal drive demonstrates a strong inability of American officers to think above the tactical or micro-tactical level of warfighting and points up their continued unsuitability for operational level war. Wargaming tends to reinforce and train-to this innate predilection for tactics.”

In truth, wars are never won at the tactical level.

The Truth About Iraq

The conventional generals in Iraq have lost the war, just like they did in Vietnam. They are using the same tactics; the tactics of dazed, incompetent politicians who only look like generals and colonels.

They made their first mistake after a US blitzkrieg seized Iraq in 2003. When 20,000 civil servants and 500,000 Iraqi troops were disbanded and told to go home, the generals and colonels weren’t thinking. They did not stop to think that at least 20,000 of those men would become fighters against the US.

The US does not understand how to get intelligence on the enemy, but in Iraq, Michael Ware, a Times Magazine reporter, has friends and contacts within the terrorist armies. Why wasn’t he interrogated and forced to give up all he knew? He knew who the enemy leadership was, and where they were located in 2004, when they were weakest.

Now, in Iraq, 70% of the countryside is controlled by 20,000 terrorists. The 120,000 American troops and about 150,000 Iraqi and coalition troops, who outnumber the enemy at 11 to 1, only control 30% of Iraq, where they are on the defensive. A number of Iraqi cities to include Fallujah, Tal Afar, and many others are now called Mujahadeen cities, where US troops are afraid to show their faces.

“Camp Chaos”, a forward patrol base of the US Army’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is located along the edge of Southern Baghdad. The Americans huddles in the bunker there, and look out over a vast enemy base area, controlled by the terrorist enemy, al-Quaeda and its allies.

Three years after the US destroyed the Iraqi army, dozens of US battalions are hunkered down in defensive positions all over Iraq. About all the scared befuddled American generals and colonels can think of, is to send out periodic platoon-sized probes into enemy controlled areas. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, along with the rest of the US military in Iraq, lost the initiative three years ago.

Three years ago, American conventional generals and colonels claimed that the insurgency was small, and would dry up soon. Then they claimed that the insurgency would dry up after Saddam was captured. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

In late 2003, Zarqawi arrived to take over al-Qaeda operations around Baghdad. Zarqawi is a Jordanian gangster, who is now Iraq’s big time commander of al-Qaeda killers. The first two things he did to announce his presence was to blow up the Jordanian embassy and the UN building in Baghdad. Then he began a reign of terror, which included many beheadings, suicide bombings, and corpse mutilations. From the beginning, he had control of Fallujah, Baghdad, and the Saudi Arabian-Jordan and Syrian border areas.

Do you remember Fallujah? It is the place where the US Marine Corps, trying to be political, was humiliated and defeated by weak terrorist forces.

In late 2003, the Marines stood by while the Fallujah enemy base area trained and equipped a steadily growing number of terrorist soldiers. In March 2004, the enemy became brazen enough to attack the Marines and coalition security farces, mutilating and burning bodies, and hanging them up as pagan displays of victory. The USMC and a few friendly Iraqi troops tried to invade Fallujah. The Marines were defeated and the Iraqi troops dissolved in panic. After one month, the Marines withdrew from the humiliating defeat. Then the Marine generals and colonels happily participated in something they felt confident about, political negotiations with the terrorists, during which they tried to bribe them and pay them tribute. (If ONLY they would stop being “so mean”.)

Then the Marines put a loose cordon around the now-secure Fallujah terrorist base. Thousands of foreign troops from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria then poured into Fallujah. Soon, they were making 500 attacks a week on the Americans, causing a three-fold increase in casualties. By 2004, the al-Qaeda terrorists controlled Ramadi, Fallujah, Tal Afar, the border areas, and most of the other cities in Iraq, which are now called Mujahadeen cities. Al-Qaeda spokesmen throughout Iraq proclaimed, “We have humiliated the most mighty army in the world”. They are right. They have humiliated the US Military in Iraq. Not because they are better, but because America’s conventional generals are incompetent.

The US military in Iraq is controlled by conventional generals who are politicians in uniform. They didn’t understand, in 2003, that foreign terrorists were pouring across the borders of Iraq. Long columns of enemy troops marched across the desert and into Iraqi cities. The border city of Tal Afar was seized in 2004, and declared a Mujahadeen city. Enemy flags flew on every street. Al-Qaeda wiped out the police force and city leaders. Everywhere beheaded corpses lay rotting. The US generals and colonels knew about that, but they didn’t know what to do. The conventional US colonels and generals in Iraq, and elsewhere, are an unsophisticated lot. They do not understand the concept of total war. There are few military intellectuals among them. In the main, they are mediocre dullards who do not know how to wield military power.

In April 2004, thousands of untrained muslim fanatics crouched in their trenches and fortified areas inside Fallujah. They had been working on those defenses for a long time, without being bothered by the Americans. Most American generals and colonels are afraid of the terrorists, however, the fear is misplaced. Most of the terrorists do not understand the finer points of urban combat. Although the US military trained for years in urban warfare, observers are shocked at their lack of demonstrated expertise.

Twelve thousand American and Iraqi troops attacked 3,000 muslim fanatics in Fallujah in April, 2004. Although little artillery and air support was used, the US used a lot of tanks and armored fighting vehicles. The enemy retreated rapidly, and only 38 Americans were killed. (Fewer men are always lost by attacking, than they are driving back and forth along the roads where they are blown up by IEDs-Improvised Explosive Device.)

The few American casualties shook up the US generals and colonels. The enemy knew that the US military leadership lacked the will and imagination to prevail. So, the terrorists regrouped, and by early 2005, were making 65 attacks a day against US forces, with mortars, rockets, and mines. The enemy brazenly stood in the open, manning their weapons, in the cities they controlled and in the cities the US was supposed to control.

Now, roadside bombs have terrorized US military forces and they are causing two-thirds of US deaths in 2005. The generals don’t know what to do. It’s not in their guidebook for politicians.

Yet, the Navy SEALs, in the 1990s developed methods for detonating enemy radio-controlled bombs, before they can do any damage. The concept is simple enough: radio-controlled bombs are detonated by sending a signal over a specific frequency. If you broadcast over the range of frequencies used by radio-controlled devices, you will periodically hit an active one. Then the detonator will activate and the bomb will go off. Why didn’t the conventional military leaders know about this tactic?

The confused and befuddled American conventional generals and colonels have constantly failed to exploit schisms in the enemy ranks. Perhaps they don’t think they will get a merit badge for winning hearts and minds if they employ the concept of divide and conquer? Neither do they understand that US troops should move into enemy controlled areas, and live there until they have totally wiped out the opposition. The US didn’t even begin using tanks against the terrorists until 2004. They did not begin concentrating their attacks in one urban sector at a time until 2005.

Colonel H.R. McMasters, a politically correct officer who is viewed by the leftist media as a counter-insurgency expert, spends a lot of time politicizing the Iraqi people around him. He thinks he is charming them and “building good relationships”. Just like in Vietnam, his troops are giving candy to children of fanatics, while smiling and shaking hands. They think such obvious stupidity will win friends and influence people among some of the most murderously savage cretins in the world. Such men as Col. McMasters have not yet grasped the fact that America is in a total, protracted war to the death against an insanely savage muslim world, that wants only to kill the infidels.

Col. McMasters has announced that after he has won friends and influenced people, reconstruction of Iraq, at US taxpayer expense will begin. He doesn’t realize that “nation-building”, or reconstructing an enemy area, only makes the enemy stronger. It is a form of tribute paid to the more masculine of two adversaries. In the meantime, the terrorists laugh at the silly Americans giving candy to their children, and fixing their plumbing, while they tell themselves that the “infidels are only temporary.”

It is amazing and outrageous that only 20,000 terrorists control over 70% of Iraq in 2006, and have totally nullified American power. All that came about because the President and his conventional generals did not understand that muslims only respect power. If the ground is fertilized with the corpses of the opposition, then the surviving majority will submit. Such thinking, however, is reserved for generals who are hard men, not the sneered at generals and colonels that think they are consummate politicians.

- Breaker McCoy

The 10th Mountain Division is Not A Mountain Division

One of the most disgraceful aspects of the US Army and marine ground forces in 2006 is their amateurism. Many modern US Army battalions, brigades and divisions are disorganized without a workable chain of command, or any other of the trappings that a modern combat infantry division should have. The commanders of such unit are to blame for such ineptitude.

A modern US Army infantry division is supposed to have as a minimum, nine or more maneuver battalions (infantry, armor, and/or mechanized), four or more artillery and antiaircraft battalions, an engineer battalion, a signals battalion, an intelligence battalion and assorted Military Police, reconnaissance and logistics units.

The US Army’s 10th Mountain Division is a pale shadow of the above. First of all, its not a mountain division, none of the soldiers in the division have much more than basic infantry training. They don’t know anything about mountain warfare. Division headquarters is not located in mountainous Colorado. It is located in the flatlands of Fort Drum, New York.

The 10th Mountain Division is not organized like an infantry division. In fact it is organized like a civilian security company that dispatches individual rifle companies all over the world. The chain of command does not work in the 10th Mountain Division. In fact at any one time the division has approximately nine battalion commanders, four brigade commanders and several generals who at any one time are wandering throughout the world like so many gypsies.

The 10th Mountain Division is supposed to be a light infantry division with at least eight light infantry battalions. It is poorly organized and lightly armed, but that is not what light infantry means. Light infantry is supposed to be well-armed foot soldiers, able to move swiftly over rough terrain. Such a unit is supposed to have plenty of light machine guns, light mortars and RPGs. The 10th Mountain Division is not like that

The Light Infantry Battalion
The poorly organized US Army light infantry battalion is supposed to have a headquarters element, three rifle companies, a mortar section of six 81 mm mortars, and an antitank unit. The antitank unit has apparently been increased in size from a platoon of four TOW antitank guided missiles mounted on Hummers, to a company of twenty TOWs. Army Field Manual (FM) 7-91 (1987) listed the light infantry battalion as having "one antiarmor platoon consisting of two sections of two TOW systems each.” TOWs are ineffective wire guided missiles, too heavy for employment in Afghanistan or Iraq. The US Army has nothing comparable to the RPG, the world’s most effective, lightweight and multipurpose antitank weapon.

The US Army light infantry battalion has a personnel strength of 567 officers and men. They are in three companies and a headquarters element with weapons units. Each company has three rifle platoons with an HQ/weapons platoon. Each platoon has a headquarters and three rifle squads of nine men each. The equipment allocations for the light infantry battalion are:

Grenade Launcher, 40mm, M203 65
Machine Gun, Cal 50, Flex 15 too heavy for light infantry
Machine Gun, Grenade 40MM, MK-19 14 too heavy for light infantry
Machine Gun, 5.56 MM M249- 72….In the 10th Mountain Division, each battalion has 9 platoons, and each platoon has two light machine guns. That’s 18 light machine guns, where are rest? The 10th Mountain Division is supposed to have 6 light machine guns per platoon
Mortar, 60 MM 6 2 per company there should be six light mortars
Mortar, 81 MM, M252 6
AntiTank Set, Command Launch Unit 18 2 per platoon, not issued in the Middle East
Truck, Util, TOW Carrier, ARMD 20

Comparison of 10th Mountain Battalion to WWII Battalions
The 10th Mountain Division’s battalions can be easily outgunned and stomped by any properly organized light infantry battalion. If there was a time warp, and second-class Rumanian and Japanese infantry battalions from World War II fought against a modern 10th Mountain Division rifle battalion, it is obvious who would win.

Even second class foreign battalions were better organized sixty years ago than modern 10th Mountain Division battalions. For example, the Rumanian mountain battalion in World War II had 3 rifle companies; each company 3 platoons and each platoon 3 squads. It also had a heavy weapons company made up from 3 machine-gun platoons (4 Schwarzlose/ZB-53 heavy machine guns each mounted on pack mules) and one mortar platoon (4xBrandt 81.4 mm also on pack mules). The Rumanian mountain rifle platoon had one 60 mm Stokes Brandt mortar and 3xZB light machine-guns, one for each squad. The Rumanian mountain battalion could easily defeat a modern US light infantry battalion because it had more mortars and machine guns. If the Rumanians faced a battalion of the 10th Mountain Division, with no artillery or air support available to either side, the Rumanians would run over them.

The same can be said of Japanese World War II infantry battalion with 1,000 soldiers. They used pack mules to haul their heavy loads. Compare that battalion, outlined below, to a 10th Mountain Division battalion.

WWII JAPANES RIFLE BATTALION WEAPONS
Rifle 6.6mm, 9 1/4 pounds, 2,850meter effective range, 10rpm, 686 in the battalion
Heavy Machine Gun 7.7mm, 122 pounds, 3,300meters effective range, 250rpm, 8 in battalion
Light Machine Gun 6.5mm, 20 pounds, 2,850meters effective range, 150rpm, 25 in battalion
Battalion Howitzer 70mm, 468 pounds, 3,700meters range, 10rpm, 2 in battalion
Grenade Discharger 50mm, 10 ¼ pounds, 40-666 meters range, 10 rpm, 22 in battalion

Source: CINCPAC CINCPOA Bulletin #55-45, 15 March 1945, Japanese Infantry Weapons.

The Light Rifle Company
The basic combat unit of a division should be a battalion or regiment. In the 10th Mountain Division, it is an under strength rifle company. A 10th Mountain Division light infantry company has five officers and one hundred, twenty-five men. The key weapons, besides small arms, are supposed to include; six light machine-guns, 5.56 mm, two 60 mm mortars, and six light anti-armor guided missiles (ATGM). These are now equipped with Javelin. The company has a company headquarters (HQ) platoon, three rifle platoons, an antitank section and a mortar section of two 60mm mortars. Tenth Mountain Division rifle companies carry no antitank weapons in Afghanistan. It is a very weak unit, more comparable to a company of civilian police.

The leadership of the 10th Mountain Division is incompetent. That is why there are so many problems in the unit. The 10th Mountain Division has totally fragmented its units. In Afghanistan, it commits platoons or individual companies to Vietnam-style search and destroy missions. Just like in Vietnam, a light platoon or company is helicopter-lifted into some Afghanistan valley and that night is returned to base.

The deployment of 10th Mountain Division tactical units is outrageous. Each man carries at least a 90-pound pack on his back and wears body armor. As a result, the troops stagger along at 10,000 feet elevation wheezing and blinded by fatigue. At least five percent of every unit falls out from exhaustion or injury during every operation.

The light troops advance at a snail’s pace without light mortar support, too few light machine guns, and no RPGs. A small gang of Afghani thugs, composed of three snipers, four light machine guns, 4 RPGs and six light mortars, would wipe them out easily.

10th Mountain Division Training
As it was during the Vietnam era, the leaders of the 10th Mountain Division require little training of their troops. Most of the time, soldiers are languishing in their bases where the men wrestle with their officers and NCOs. They play sports a lot, have a daily run and work out with weights. They have lots of fattening food and ice cream every day. Such an atmosphere maintains immaturity among the personnel and such troops are prone to panic. The 10th Mountain Division has a too high percentage of traumatic and posttraumatic stress syndrome. The unit’s “combat veterans” actually have very little exposure to combat.
10th Mountain Division training is abysmal. Combat units go to the rifle range periodically. Sometimes they do SWAT type training in abandoned buildings. That’s it! They are NOT taught machine gun tactics, light mortar tactics, assaults on mountain strongholds, laying and defusing booby traps, calling in artillery fire, ambushing, raids, reaction to ambush and/or the tactics of withdrawal under pressure. There is plenty of time available for training, but no officers are available who know what to do.

It’s a Leadership Problem
The commander of the 10th Mountain Division was in charge of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. That operation was a total failure. The inept generals and colonels of the 10th Mountain Division have demonstrated no understanding of the concept of battlefield intelligence. They don’t know how to locate enemy supply lines or bases. The division’s generals and colonels are living in the future. They’ve never heard of using pack animals to carry heavy loads in mountains. In the 10th Mountain Division, infantry soldiers are used as pack mules. 10th Mountain Division units are as bad as the worst units fielded during the Vietnam War.

In October 2002, a “brigade” (a collection of 2-3 battalions) of the 10th Mountain Division was employed in an assault exercise at the Urban Readiness Training Center in Louisiana. The 10th Mountain Division troops were supposedly “veterans” led by “officer veterans of combat operations in Afghanistan.” Yet the unit’s company, battalion and brigade commanders demonstrated that they had no idea how to maneuver their units. Their units were wiped out to the last man. The performance of the 10th Mountain Division leadership was unbelievably inept.

There are many professional soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division that we can be proud of. However, many of the conventional colonels and generals in command, are unfit.

-Breaker McCoy

The Best Secretary of Defense We've Ever Had

Proof that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is the best Secretary of Defense that America has ever had.

The left constantly maligns Donald Rumsfeld because he has refused to follow the ensured-defeat scenario developed by US leftists during decades of defeat. That scenario has well known components with predictable roles always played out by America’s Troika of Incompetence (ATI). The ATI is composed of the CIA, State Department and conventional military. The State Department is known for its appeasement orientation, gutlessness and anti-American outlook. The CIA is known for the same orientation combined with a total failure to collect useful intelligence information. America’s ground armed forces are led by inept, incompetent, political generals who have not won a real war in over fifty years. The ground forces include many spiteful, petty leftist bureaucrats who pretend to be warriors but are more like the State Department.
Rumsfeld knows the ATI well and has fought its slimy sabotage for over six years. He has recognized the weaknesses of the US conventional armed forces, State Department, and CIA, and has imaginatively developed plans to by-pass America’s most loser-oriented agencies. Rumsfeld’s plans include several key elements that side step the proven ineptitude of America’s Troika of Incompetence (ATI):

1. The plan will use Special Operations forces much more than the inept conventional forces. USs Special Operations forces are the most trustworthy and competent anti-terror forces available. They also seem immune to left-wing infiltration and sabotage. They are America’s only hope.
2. The armed forces have cut themselves loose from CIA ineptitude and are collecting their own intelligence on a massive scale.
3. The Pentagon gained the leeway to inform -- rather than gain the approval of -- the U.S. ambassador before conducting military operations in a foreign country. In the past the State Department has used that approval process to sabotage US military operations and warn US adversaries.

New Plans Foresee Fighting Terrorism Beyond War Zones: Pentagon to Rely on Special Operations
By Ann Scott Tyson: Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, April 23, 2006; Page A01
www.washingtonpost.com

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the case of another major terrorist attack on the United States, according to defense officials.

The long-awaited campaign plan for the global war on terrorism, as well as two subordinate plans also approved within the past month by Rumsfeld, are considered the Pentagon's highest priority, according to officials familiar with the three documents who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Details of the plans are secret, but in general they envision a significantly expanded role for the military -- and, in particular, a growing force of elite Special Operations troops -- in continuous operations to combat terrorism outside of war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Developed over about three years by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, the plans reflect a beefing up of the Pentagon's involvement in domains traditionally handled by the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.

For example, SOCOM has dispatched small teams of Army Green Berets and other Special Operations troops to U.S. embassies in about 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where they do operational planning and intelligence gathering to enhance the ability to conduct military operations where the United States is not at war.
And in a subtle but important shift contained in a classified order last year, the Pentagon gained the leeway to inform -- rather than gain the approval of -- the U.S. ambassador before conducting military operations in a foreign country, according to several administration officials. "We do not need ambassador-level approval," said one defense official familiar with the order.

Overall, the plans underscore Rumsfeld's conviction since the September 2001 terrorist attacks that the U.S. military must expand its mission beyond 20th-century conventional warfare by infantry, tanks, ships and fighter jets to fighting non-state groups that are, above all, difficult to find.

The plans each run more than 100 pages and cover a wide range of overt and clandestine military activities -- such as man-hunting and intelligence gathering on terrorist networks; attacks on terrorist training camps and recruiting efforts; and partnering with foreign militaries to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries. Together, they amount to an assignment of responsibilities to different military commands to conduct what the Pentagon envisions as a "long war" against terrorism.

The main campaign plan sets priorities, allocates resources such as manpower and funding, and coordinates operations among regional military commands to implement the Pentagon's broader National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, published in unclassified form in February. It lays out nine key goals, such as targeting terrorist leaders, safe havens, communications and other logistical support, and countering extremist ideology.

A second detailed plan is focused specifically on al-Qaeda and associated movements, including more than a dozen groups spread across the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa. Such groups include the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Ansar al-Islam in the Middle East, Jemaah Islamiya in Indonesia, and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in Saharan Africa.
A third plan sets out how the military can both disrupt and respond to another major terrorist strike on the United States. It includes lengthy annexes that offer a menu of options for the military to retaliate quickly against specific terrorist groups, individuals or state sponsors depending on who is believed to be behind an attack. Another attack could create both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to retaliate against some known targets, according to current and former defense officials familiar with the plan.

This plan details…"what terrorists or bad guys we would hit if the gloves came off. The gloves are not off," said one official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the counter-terrorism plans or their approval, citing longstanding policy. "We do not discuss contingency plans or future operations," said Cmdr. Greg Hicks, a Defense Department spokesman. SOCOM's deputy commander, Vice Adm. Eric T. Olson, said earlier this month in Senate testimony that the plans had been approved.

Special Operations Command, led by General Doug Brown, has been building up its headquarters and writing the plans since 2003, when Rumsfeld first designated it as the lead command for the war on terrorism. Its budget has grown 60 percent since 2003 to $8 billion in fiscal 2007. President Bush empowered the 53,000-strong command with coordinating the entire military's efforts in counter-terrorism in 2004.

"SOCOM is, in fact, in charge of the global war on terror," Brown said in testimony before the House last month. In this role, SOCOM directs and coordinates actions by the military's regional combatant commands. SOCOM, if directed, can also command its own counter-terrorist operations -- such as when a threat spans regional boundaries or the mission is highly sensitive -- but it has not done so yet, according to Olson, and other officials say that is likely to be the exception to the rule.

To extend its reach to more countries, SOCOM is increasing by 13,000 the number of Special Operations troops, including Special Forces soldiers skilled in language and working with indigenous militaries, and Delta Force operatives and Navy SEAL teams that form clandestine "special mission units" engaged in reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and man-hunting. Already, SOCOM is seeing its biggest deployments in history, with 7,000 troops overseas today, but the majority have been concentrated in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 85 percent last year in the Middle East, Central Asia or the Horn of Africa.

But SOCOM's more robust role -- while adding manpower, specialized skills and organization to the fight against terrorism -- has also led to some bureaucratic tensions, both inside the military with the joint staff and regional commands, as well as with the CIA and State Department. Such tensions are one reason SOCOM's plan took years.

When SOCOM first dispatched military liaison teams abroad starting in 2003, they were called "Operational Control Elements," a term changed last year because "it raised the hackles of regional commanders and ambassadors. It was a bad choice of language," said one defense official, adding: "Who can pick on Military Liaison Elements?"

State Department officials, meanwhile, said that although, for the most part, cooperation with the military teams has been good, they remain concerned over continued "gray areas" regarding their status. "Special Ops wants the flexibility and speed to go in there. . . . but there's understandably questions of how you do that and how you have clear lines of authority," one U.S. official said. There remains "continuing discussion, to put it politely, in terms of how this is going to work," the official said. SOCOM says the teams work for the regional commanders.

- Breaker McCoy

For more information about this area of Military Command, see the QuikManeuvers book titled Backstabbing.

Next Post: Report on the 10th Mountain Division: Afghanistan

The Reconnaissance Battle & Levels of War

The Reconnaissance Battle is fought at all three levels of war:

• the Tactical
• the Operational
• and the Strategic

“The reconnaissance battle begins before the first operational stage and continues until the culminating point is reached. These continuous reconnaissance battles are carried out ceaselessly before, during and after all military campaigns. "The first phase of every battle is a battle for information. Reconnaissance is the active measure of acquiring information, so the recon battle is one side fighting to get information while the other attempts to deny it..." Main force maneuver, which usually occurs after the reconnaissance phase, is possible during the reconnaissance battle. Victory will be jeopardized if the reconnaissance battle is lost.”

From Fast-Moving; Hard-Striking War:


In WWI the German Army discovered there were three levels of war: The tactical; the operational; and the strategic.

In WWII, many German Army and Soviet Army victories were predicated on the knowledge of those three levels. In the meantime, the Americans, British and French did not know there was anything but the tactical and strategic levels of war until the 1980s. In that decade, the US Army discovered the connecting link between tactical and strategic level warfare, known as the operational level. Then they learned from the Soviets the fact that all wars are won at the operational level, which requires the practices of the Operational Art.

The Levels Of War

• Strategic: Overall war plan and direction that might be applied to separate theaters of war (i.e. large geographic divisions where either independent or multiple army groups are deployed), or strategic directions. Operational Art is responsive to strategic dictates.
• Operational: The arena where campaigns are planned and led in order to achieve theater goals. Campaigning requires the practice of Operational Art, the essence of maneuver warfare. Operational Art consists of the integration of tactical efforts into major operations, subsets of campaigns, and campaigns. Force employed at this level ranges from combined arms reinforced corps to several armies or army groups. Campaigns are multiple maneuver mixes of deception, maneuver, battles, and pursuit. Tactics is responsive to Operational Art's dictates.
• Tactical: The building blocks of campaigns where small corps, divisions and below, fight engagements, subsets of battle, and battles.

From Center of Gravity a QuikManeuvers.com publication

The Reconnaissance Battle

Whenever two enemy forces draw near each other and combat is in the offing, both sides should be trying to find out all they can about the enemy. The information obtained by reconnaissance can provide protection for ones own troops, while possibly identifying vulnerabilities of the enemy.

Most enemy vulnerabilities are found behind the lines. In war, it is stupid to attack an enemy strongpoint, it is better to strike an enemy weak point. The reconnaissance battle looks for gaps, or weak points, in the enemy dispositions.

Secondarily, battlefield reconnaissance can identify avenues of approach, bottlenecks, key terrain, water points, cover and concealed areas, and open or danger zones. Battlefield reconnaissance can spot enemy mine fields, forward observers, ambushes, counter reconnaissance screens and/or roadblocks.
A commander that does not send out scouts as far ahead of nis main body as possible is asking for defeat.

From Fast-Moving; Hard-Striking War:
“The main objective of the first (Finnish Army’s) Motti phase (reconnaissance and stopping) was to stop the enemy column on its approach road. Harassing patrols struck the enemy column from all directions while its advance was impeded by temporary roadblocks and delaying actions. At the same time a reconnaissance battle was fought to eliminate enemy reconnaissance assets and determine, "...the enemy's strength and groupments, route of advance, mobility...strength, quality of armament and equipment and communications and supply routes. ... The Finns conducted terrain evaluation and marked routes for their own motti operations..." This phase was marked by guerrilla methods of ambushing, raiding, mining and other hit-and-run tactics designed to create fear and desperation in the enemy ranks.”

Against Removal of Rumsfeld

Recently I and a few friends have been discussing the subject of the traitorous US generals who are demanding the firing of Don Rumsfeld. I am in disagreement with most so-called conservatives regarding both Rumsfeld and their characterization of the generals who opposes him as “warriors.”

Most conservatives believe, without any substantiating evidence, that US Army and US Marine generals are patriots who, “if left alone without interference by the civilians” will obtain victories for the United States. As a former paratroop officer, and leader of a group of right-wingers who are experienced leaders in the US Army and Marine Corps, I would appreciate it if you would consider another view, and the substantiation that I offer supporting that view.

Our web site at www.quickermaneuvers.com offers over ninety books and booklets, many of which describe evidence against many US armed forces general officers as well as the CIA and FBI. That evidence focuses upon numerous instances of betrayal of national interest, sabotage of national interest, and downright incompetence by US military generals and the leadership staffs of the CIA and FBI. If right wing talk show hosts don’t bring the facts about the armed forces, CIA, and FBI to the vast conservative silent majority, then the truth will never be known and black-hearted phonies and traitors will be blindly supported as patriotic, competent warrior-leaders by the uninformed. We invite you to visit our web site and to begin to examine the partially hidden truth, from a variety of sources, about the ENEMYS WITHIN the armed forces, CIA and FBI.
The focus of this letter is the US army and Marine Corps generals, which you characterize as “warriors” who “could win the war if they were not interfered with by Donald Rumsfeld.” In addition to the material already available on our web site, we are currently working on a series of books describing the incompetence and betrayal by numerous US generals, who are not only criminally incompetent but also left-wingers. Some of the major points of that book will be:

- During the “cold war” a number of US generals and admirals were members of “Generals For Peace” a communist front group composed of leftist NATO generals and officers serving as agents of influence for the communists. Traitorous leftist cliques of left-wing generals and admirals still exist with the US armed forces as a progenitor of that traitorous organization and a dangerous ENEMY WITHIN.

- The modern US armed forces is divided into two groups. 1 - A patriotic special warfare organization that includes our nation’s bravest and strongest fighters for freedom (see: The Hunt For Bin Laden, by Robin Moore). 2 - A conventional military whose controlling generals and their staffs are divided by the machinations of the following types of generals and admirals: a large number of leftist generals; political generals who are incompetent anti-warrior bureaucrats; and careerists who only seek an easy life without danger.

- America’s conventional generals screwed up the initial victories in Afghanistan and Iraq by implementing a Vietnam War-style program of huge luxurious base camps and limited predictable offensive action that has actually facilitated enemy progress. There are many details about this aspect that will shock you.
- Rumsfeld has worked tirelessly to eliminate the numerous incompetent and disloyal (to America’s best interests) bureaucratic generals from the US military as part of his “transformation” program. He wants to transform the military leadership into an effective pro-American force cleansed of leftist and self-serving generals and admirals. Not surprisingly, such policies have created a number of hate-filled enemies among the disposed generals. It is time that the truth about John Batiste, John Riggs, Anthony Zinni, Charles Swannack, Paul Eaton, and Gregory Newbold is told.

- One of the few trustworthy patriotic AND competent generals in the US military is Lieutenant General William G. Boykin. You didn’t mention him as a warrior leader but he is. A decorated warrior leader from Special Forces, General Boykin was penalized by the army for making anti-Muslim terrorist speeches in Christian churches. Boykin, the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, violated Pentagon rules by making pro-Christian and anti-Muslim remarks, which gained wide publicity a year or so ago. In one appearance, Boykin told a religious group in Oregon that Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christians. ... And the enemy is a guy named Satan."

- General Colin Powell is an example of the politicized US general who was promoted to high rank without military experience of combat command, combat experience, or any warrior credentials. As armed forces Chief of Staff the leftist Powell was able to further a pernicious left-wing agenda, which included the “embedding” of leftist journalists in every US combat force, unlike the more judicious management of the leftist press that occurred during the Persian Gulf War. My new book will describe his sabotage of America’s warriors in grim detail.

- A number of US generals, instead of protesting the elevation to power to undeserving political generals like Powell, embraced the concept and became his allies in furthering the left-wing agenda within the military. Among such men is Wesley Clark, a Clinton protégée, a proven military incompetent, and a flaming neo-Marxist.

- The Fallujah defeat in Iraq was caused by incompetent USMC generals. They were sure that if they treated the bloodthirsty Muslim terrorists, who had fortified Fallujah, with political diplomacy they had learned in leftist sensitivity seminars, all would be splendid. As a result, they wasted crucial time offering the local Muslims hand-outs which were sneered at. The would-be political diplomats of the Marine Corps also failed to seize a toehold in Fallujah, and commanded instead that the marines dig in outside of Fallujah in the open desert; a silly maneuver that convinced the terrorists that the Marines were afraid of them. There is so much to the real story that you should know.

- A specific US Army general was the architect of the idea that no US tanks or armored vehicles should be used in Afghanistan or Iraq. He was a Clinton protégée. Rumsfeld changed that order after those generals who agreed with Clinton’s idea that “the modern military should be a police force that does not need tanks,” wasted a number of lives.

- Leftist generals have pushed so strongly for the interference of lawyers in military operations that these lawyers have repeatedly sabotaged combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Early in the war in Afghanistan, an armed UAV had Osama Bin Laden and his staff zeroed in, ready to destroy them with a missile, when the UAV operators asked General Tommy franks for permission to fire. He thereupon consulted his military legal staff. After much argument, the legal staff decided that since the target was no longer in view, it would be best to fire the missile at a nearby, unoccupied vehicle.

- Leftist generals inside the US military have gone “lawfare” crazy. They have followed the lead of anti-American legal staffs within the military, who have strait-jacketed the American armed forces in the middle east with Rules of Engagement”, legal oversight, and leftist journalist embeds who have effectively paralyzed any maneuverability that was heretofore available to US armed forces.

- Secretary Rumsfeld has been at the forefront in removing by retirement many incompetent and left-wing US military generals, most of whom are in that group that you refer to as warriors. They are the exact opposite of warriors.

- Leftist generals and their staffs have enabled a large number of muslim traitors to flourish inside US armed forces. These traitors have committed much sabotage, including murder, which goes unreported in the leftist media.

- Leftist generals in the US armed forces have committed many anti-Christian and anti-American outrages at the bureaucratic level. Including: 1 – throwing the boy scouts off post because they refuse to have homosexual scoutmasters. 2 – Approving a number of bureaucratic edicts against Christianity and Christian holidays. 3 – Implementing Muslim holidays and sensitivity groups used to teach officers that the muslim religion is a religion of love.

- Leftist US generals imbued with UN-approved political correct policies of peacekeeping police tactics have begun to turn the US armed forces into a glorified gendarmerie, which is inefficient and ineffective when offensive combat is needed. Offensive combat is the TRUE necessity of an armed force. The US military, in its current defensive orientation will soon become unable to fight against first-class military opponents such as Communist China. See my book entitled: High Command, Quikmaneuver Publications.

Richard Marcinko, a patriot former SEAL officer, who is a real warrior, once said: “,,,we Americans have habitually been led by people who for some leftist reason want to wage fashionable, nice, polite wars…Warren Christopher who was deputy secretary of state asked Delta Force’s CO, Charlie Beckwith, to shoot the Iranian terrorists holding American hostages in Tehran in the shoulder, so they wouldn’t get hurt during our …rescue mission…This is the same Warren Christopher who ran the State Department in 1993, when our boys got chewed up in Somalia because the rules of engagement (bureaucratic rules which force our military to give armed enemies the advantage) drawn up by Christopher’s staff and the Clinton White House Whiz Kids didn’t allow any kicking ass…because ‘innocent ‘ Somalis might get hurt.”


Ask yourself this, “Why is it that Clinton, who caused the US Military to make many stupid mistakes in the Balkans and Africa was never publicly criticized by any generals? After Clinton’s ruinous policies in Somalia caused the international humiliation of US armed forces that were forced to run like scared dogs after a bunch of drug-crazed Africans had massacred a small group US Special Forces troops, not one single general even murmured any criticism.” Why? The answer is simple. The vocal leadership of US armed forces is leftist.

Sincerely,
Breaker McCoy,
www.quikmaneuvers.com

Light Mortars and the Sharp End

Light mortars (60 mm) are lightweight, easy to carry, and may be rapidly deployed. The combination of numerous light machine guns, RPGs, and light mortars is virtually unbeatable along the skirmish lines.

"Most light infantry officers focus exclusively upon the high explosive firepower of light mortars. They forget the importance of light mortar delivered smoke rounds, used for deceiving the enemy and denying his forward observers artillery targets.
Two 60mm mortars are assigned to every American light, airborne and air assault infantry company, and three to every Ranger company. The new high explosive round of the American 60mm, weighing only 3-5 pounds will have a range of more than four kilometers with a burst radius of 29.5 meters--as effective as the much heavier (100 pound) 81mm mortar. Yet, there are too few 60mm mortar tubes in the US Army’s light infantry division. There should be 150 60mm mortars in the current US light infantry division, 50 per light infantry regiment, instead of the current total of 54 for the entire division.”
From the book, Close Assault, provides sensational information regarding the importance of light mortars in infantry combat.

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